Agent-to-Agent Communication A2A

Send messages, files, and commands between any two NFLTR agents — even behind NAT, firewalls, or in different cloud VPCs. No port forwarding, no VPN, no direct IP connectivity required.

How It Works

Both agents maintain a persistent gRPC connection to the NFLTR server. When Agent A sends a message to Agent B, the server routes it through the existing backchannels. Neither agent needs to accept inbound connections.

CLI Examples

Send a text message

# From Agent A: send to Agent B (identified by OPHID)
nfltr a2a send agent-b "deployment complete, ready for testing"

Send a command

# On Agent B: listen and execute commands
nfltr a2a listen --exec /bin/sh

# From Agent A: send a command to Agent B
nfltr a2a send agent-b "systemctl status nginx"

# Agent B executes via --exec and returns the output

Send a file

# For file transfer, use P2P direct transfer instead
nfltr p2p send config.yaml agent-b

# Or pipe file contents through A2A
cat config.yaml | nfltr a2a send agent-b

Listen for messages

# On Agent B: wait for incoming messages
nfltr a2a listen

Capabilities

🔐 Authenticated

Both agents must have valid credentials. The server verifies identities before routing.

🌐 NAT Traversal

Neither agent opens inbound ports. All communication flows through the persistent outbound gRPC tunnel.

📦 Multi-Type

Send text messages, files, or commands. The receiver processes each type appropriately.

🔀 Multi-Pod Routing

Works across NFLTR server pods via Redis pub/sub. Agent A and Agent B can be on different pods.

⚡ Low Latency

Reuses existing persistent gRPC connections. No connection setup overhead per message.

🔑 SSH Integration

Combine with SSH tunneling for full remote shell access between agents. No SSH keys to distribute.

Use Cases

IoT fleet coordination — Send configuration updates or commands to specific edge devices.
Distributed CI/CD — Trigger builds on remote build servers, collect results back.
Multi-site operations — Coordinate actions between agents in different datacenters or offices.
Chat & collaboration — Build real-time messaging between agents for operator communication.
File distribution — Push binaries, configs, or data files to remote agents without external transfer services.

💡 Combine with P2P for direct transfer

A2A routes through the server. For large file transfers or video calls, combine with P2P Direct Transfer to go peer-to-peer via WebRTC with no server relay.

Connect your agents

Bidirectional messaging between any two agents — zero firewall changes.

CLI Reference P2P Direct Transfer →